Exemplary embodiments discussed herein relate generally to a printing system and, more particularly, to a printing system and method for printing independent items from one or more applications, typically printed as separate and unique print jobs, as a single print job. These embodiments find particular application in a printing system employing an electrophotographic imaging machine and will be described with particular reference thereto. It is to be appreciated, however, that the exemplary embodiments discussed herein are also amenable to other like applications.
In a typical printing system employing an electrophotographic imaging machine, such as an electrophotographic copier, printer, combination copier/printer, etc., a photoconductive insulating member is charged to a substantially uniform potential and thereafter exposed to a light image representative of a document to be produced. This exposure discharges the photoconductive insulating surface in exposed or background areas and creates an electrostatic latent image on the member, corresponding to image areas of the document to be produced. Subsequently, the electrostatic latent image on the photoconductive insulating surface is made visible by developing the image with developing powder referred to in the art as toner. This developed image may be subsequently transferred to a print medium, such as a sheet of copy paper, to which it may be permanently affixed by heating and/or by the application of pressure, i.e., fusing.
Printing systems, including those that employ one or more electrophotographic imaging machines as generally described above, can sometimes employ a scanner for scanning image-bearing documents, i.e., source documents, and conversion electronics for converting an image scanned from a source document to image signals or pixels. Alternatively, image signals or pixels representative of an image or document to be printed can be generated directly on a computer or like device, without the need for a source document. In either case, the signals are typically stored and read out successively to the printing system for formation of the images on photoconductive output media, such as a photoreceptor, and ultimately transfer to a support substrate, such as described above.
Sometimes, a user of such a printing system desires to print multiple items from one or more programs or applications for assemblage into a single compound document. For example, the user may want to print a first item from a word processing program and a second item from a graphics or photo editing program. Typically, the first and second items are sent to the printer of a printing system as separate print jobs, i.e., a first print job corresponds to the first item and a second print job corresponds to the second item. The first and second print jobs are then individually processed by the printer and output documents or media corresponding to each print job are generated. After the output documents are generated, the user can manually assemble the two documents into a single document and apply any desired finishing (e.g., stapling) to the single document.
This process become more tedious when a user desires to create multiple copies of the single compound document using the printer system. For example, a user may desire to create three (3) copies of a compound document, wherein the compound document comprises three (3) items from one or more programs or applications. Typically, in such a case, the user would be required to print three copies of a first item, three copies of second item and three copies of a third item. The printed items would then need to be manually separated and assembled or built into three copies of the compound document (i.e., collated) and any desired finishing applied to the compound document copies. Thus, each copy of the compound document would then include one copy of the first item, one copy of the second item and one copy of the third item.
Other difficulties could be encountered during printing of the items to be included in the compound document. For example, if the user is employing a printer system in a multiple user networked environment, other users may print items that could become interleaved with the items being printed for inclusion in one or more copies of a compound document. Such interleaved items would need to be removed by the user when separating and assembling the compound document copy or copies. Additionally, if banner sheets (i.e., a cover or lead sheet associated with each print job) are employed by the printer system, each banner sheet will need to be removed by the user when separating and assembling the compound document or documents.